Seeing the Courage to Change
by Shrapnel893
Summary: Ran has always known that nothing ever changes. Ever since she'd been appointed the Seer, she's known. Yet, she doubts her reasoning after meeting Ichise, the one person she is willing to save.
1. Raffia Flowers

**Raffia flowers**

White flowers, with light pinkish centers. _Raffia flowers._

Raffia, the source of energy that keeps the city running. The underground city of Lux, a dismal somber locality where the unlucky wallow. They welter in the pollution, the dust, the disease. The _insanity_. Their lives only brightened by factitious light shining above the city, at the clemency of the Class. The higher ones living in white rooms, in white houses, with white fountains flowing pellucid water, bathed in white light.

_ Raffia flowers._

They capture this light into their petals, into their color. _That's why I like them._ These flowers. Flowers that represent hope, that represent life. All over the village of Gabe they bloom, in the dark. In the caves where the Raffia flows, in the ponds where the fish swim, in the stone where the grass grows, in peoples' futures where their fates are sewn. These Raffia flowers give me hope, a means to survive in this place. In this city, full of insanity and full of black. Black hearts and black minds. Hopeless lives and hopeless fates. _Bleak_. Desolate and bleak, barren like the ground they stand on. But these flowers, these flowers give me hope. A white bright _hope_. Though, despite this hope nothing ever changes.

_Nothing._ Not the lives, not the futures, not the fates. Nothing ever changes, always staying the same. White flowers, with light pinkish centers.

_ Raffia flowers._ They are the source of energy that keeps me running. That keeps me sane.


	2. Seeing the Courage to Change

**Seeing the Courage to Change**

_Why?_ These events, they just won't go away. _Why?_ I can see everything. I don't want to see them anymore, I don't want to see those futures. _Why?_ Nothing, nothing ever changes... then _why?_

Your future. You have it laid out before you and you don't let it stop you. You can't change your fate, so why? Why do you resist it? Even though I gave you your ultimatum you still fight against it. Even though we both know it can't be changed, it can't be stopped, it can't be deterred. Are you trying to rewrite it, your fate? No, you are changing what happens in the in-between. Is that what I can't see, the in-between? The unwritten pages before the final chapter, before the final stroke of the quill on the paper, is that what I can't see? I'm the Seer, the one who is supposed to see everything and yet, and yet I can't. I just can't. Your fate, your future, its ending is already written, already set, already determined.

So why? Why do the pages before have to be blank, filled in by the black ink of your change? Why can't I find it in myself to change, like you? What makes you pull away from the light at the end of the tunnel? What makes you, the one with no reason to live, to swim opposite the flow of the river? Why? Is it because, you, the one with no reason to live, to survive, doesn't want his future to come true? Your fate, your destiny, your pre-written ending to destroy everything, everyone, and all around you, to be all alone at your final moments. You can't. No matter how hard you try, you can't. After all, nothing ever changes. Yet, you are. You are changing how the events leading up to that bleak, sad, lonely ending are written.

Is that change? Is that how a future can change? Even though, even though I'm the one who can see ahead of time, I had never known. Never known that it can be so, that one can write their own story before the final word. Before the final breath, the last touch, the ending melody. You change the tunes of your melody from desolate and empty, nothingness, into happiness, unrivaled joy.

Comfort. Warmth. _Love_.

If so, can I cut the strings, the strings that bind my melody to my fate and connect them to yours? With yours? In perfect tune with one another? Can I? Is that how I can find the strength, the ambition, the courage?

I finally see, for one who can seemly see everything, I can finally and truly see. I know what I can alter before the last stroke of that quill ends all our stories in the ageless fable called time. I never knew that I could find it. The courage. But you, with your arms swinging and rage seething, slowly giving way to control, to a reason to live. You, the one who will destroy everything in the end, who will never find a warmth to gather in your heart, is finding it. Is it resonating from somewhere else, because of something else, from someone else, because of another?

I see, it's me, isn't it? Your warmth, your _love_. Something you want to hold dear, to protect with all your heart. Is me. I, who you want to hold so close to your heart, the Seer.

_Do you?_

Do you see them? The flowers. Those flowers that I pick, that I sell in that city, do you see me in them? Would you want one to bloom inside of your heart, _your soul_, so I can always be there? A white, fresh, fragrant life in that darkness? No, _not_ darkness. But a faint grey, between the colors of life and death, trying to rise to the white but ever falling into the black. The hands of fate trying to hold you down but your will, your inner self, the defying character that is truly you, is ever rising to that one wish. To be with me, to save me, to protect me, to care for me. To hold me. You kindness, your unshakable feelings are what keep you going. To change the pages before those final words. The end. Nothing, nothing ever changes, but they are. I used to just stay awake, sleepless, gazing at your future, watching how it would alter all the others around you.

_Left wondering._

Wondering about how my own will be affected. But we both already know, deep down, don't we? That sole thing can't be rewritten, can't be undone, can't be solved with a simple wish. After all, nothing ever changes. That is, the end of it all. The ending to our final chapters that are written by the quill of time. But through you, I have seen. I have seen that the unwritten letters, the words, the sentences, the paragraphs, the chapters, the unused ink in the quill, can be used to change the events of your story before the final words. Those two final words. _The end._

For that, I too feel the warmth. The warmth of you inside my own heart. Your courage, your will to change, to survive. The unwavering beast within you that won't lie down and submit. I can feel it too, a fresh fragrance of life inside myself, a light blue flower. The flower of you, your body, your mind, your very being. Together, combined, our flowers mend to form a certain sensation, a light red and pink flower. An understanding between two beautiful melodies in perfect harmony, sharing the same strings, the same tune. Can you feel it too? Do you know what it is?

You do, don't you? That's right, it's _love_. A love for each other is what binds us, our futures, our fates. You are my wish, my hope, my dream, as I am to you.

_ The Seer and the Sword_.

I, the Seer and the Voice of the City, have finally found the courage to change. To change the blank pages before the ending to my story, and I'll have you in them. For that, I thank you. My sword, my light blue flower, my companion, my friend. I thank you with all my heart. We'll see each other again, after the ending to both our stories. Our flowers in the same meadow, our melodies in the same song, our chapters in the same book. That's the future after our end, that not just me, but both of us have seen.

Isn't that right,_ Ichise?_


End file.
